Origin of Fluorescence Lifetimes in Human Serum Albumin. Studies on Native and Denatured Protein

Human serum albumin consists of a single polypeptide of 585 amino acid residues with 1 Trp residue. In the present work, we measured fluorescence lifetimes of the protein in both native and denatured states. The results indicate that Trp emission occurs with three lifetimes in both states. Lifetimes values and contribution to the global emission decay differ between the two states. Data are interpreted as the results of an emission occurring from three substructures of the tryptophan formed in the excited state. Two of these substructures are already present for the tryptophan free in solution. The third lifetime is the result of the interaction between the tryptophan residue and surrounding microenvironment. The populations of these substructures characterized by the pre-exponential parameters of the fluorescence lifetimes are dependent on the fluorophore microenvironment and on the global protein structure.     

Clustering Categorical Data via Ensembling Dissimilarity Matrices

We present a technique for clustering categorical data by generating many dissimilarity matrices and combining them. We begin by demonstrating our technique on low-dimensional categorical data and comparing it to several other techniques that have been proposed. We show through simulations and examples that our method is both more accurate and more stable. Then we give conditions under which our method should yield good results in general. Our method extends to high-dimensional categorical data of equal lengths by ensembling over many choices of explanatory variables. In this context, we compare our method with two other methods. Finally, we extend our method to high-dimensional categorical data vectors of unequal length by using alignment techniques to equalize the lengths. We give an example to show that our method continues to provide useful results, in particular, providing a comparison with phylogenetic trees. Supplementary material for this article is available online.     

Sum of Element Orders of Maximal Subgroups of the Symmetric Group

For a finite group G, let ψ(G) denote the sum of element orders of G. The aim of this article is to show that ψ(H) < ψ(A _n ) for every proper subgroup H of the symmetric group of degree n, which is different from the alternating group A _n .     

Second Maximum Sum of Element Orders of Finite Nilpotent Groups

In [1 Amiri , H. , Jafarian Amiri , S. M. , Isaacs , I. M. ( 2009 ). Sums of element orders in finite groups . Communications in Algebra 37 : 2978 – 2980 .[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], the authors proved that the maximum sum of element orders on finite groups of the same order occurs in cyclic group. In this paper we obtain the structure of groups having maximum sum of element orders on noncyclic nilpotent group of the same order.     

Feed-forward modelling and fuzzy logic based control strategy for powertrain efficiency improvement in a parallel hybrid electric vehicle

With the stricter limitations on both fuel consumption and air pollution, the advantages of a hybrid electric vehicle are becoming more evident than ever. In the present study, an energy management system for a hybrid electric vehicle is developed. Because the plant under consideration is nonlinear, multi-domain, time-varying, has multiple uncertainties and, in addition, the designed control strategy must be able to obey the driver's commands and achieve the par-internship for a new generation of vehicle regulations, the fuzzy logic approach is chosen. A feed-forward hybrid vehicle simulation model is used to demonstrate the validity and the convenience of the current approach and its results have been compared with the other parallel hybrid electric vehicle control strategies. Simulation results show considerable improvement in the efficiency of the internal combustion engine and, consequently, fuel consumption and acceleration performances.     

Asymptotic normality of recursive estimators under strong mixing conditions

The main purpose of this paper is to estimate the regression function by using a recursive nonparametric kernel approach. We derive the asymptotic normality for a general class of recursive kernel estimate of the regression function, under strong mixing conditions. Our purpose is to extend the work of Roussas and Tran (Ann Stat 20:98–120, 1992) concerning the Devroye–Wagner estimate.     

Optical quantum transmitter with finesse of 30 at 800-nm central wavelength using microring resonators

A microring resonator (MRR) system incorporating an add/drop system is presented. The finesse of the proposed system can be determined using the full width at half maximum (FWHM) and free spectrum range (FSR) of the generated multiple soliton pulses. The central wavelength of the bright input soliton pulse has been selected as 800 nm, at which a ring system with better sensitivity shows high finesse that is suitable for applications to many optical communication systems such as optical transmitters and sensors. Simulation results show that FSR of 0.3 nm and 1.1 ns and FWHM of 10 pm and 36.6 ps could be obtained. Therefore, a system with finesse of 30 can be obtained; in such a system, the MRR system shows high performance. This system can be used in optical communication networks as a transmitter system for optical soliton pulses with finesse of 30, and theses pulses can be detected via an optical receiver.     

Spectral anomalies near phase singularities in reflection at Brewster's angle and colored castastrophes

The anomalous behavior of a polychromatic beam reflected from the interface of two homogeneous dielectric media at the neighborhood of Brewster's angle is investigated theoretically and examined experimentally. An explicit expression is derived for the spectrum at an arbitrary observation point for a given incident spectrum. By introducing a modifier function it is shown that the spectrum at each point sensitively depends on the observation angle just in the immediate neighborhood of Brewster's angle and wavelength. Finally, the obtained results are applied to account for the horizontal parts of the supernumerary rainbows.     

Palladium nanoparticles immobilized over Strawberry fruit extract coated Fe3O4 NPs: A magnetic reusable nanocatalyst for Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions

This paper develops a green method for in situ decorated of palladium nanoparticles over Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles, by utilizing Strawberry fruit extract and ultrasound irradiations, with no use of any toxic reducing agent. The structure's characterization is represented via diverse analytical methods such as FT-IR, FE-SEM, TEM, WDX, ICP, EDS and XXPS. Catalytic efficiency of magnetic Fe₃O₄@Strawberry/Pd nanocatalyst is investigated in production of different biphenyls with good turnover frequencies (TOF) and turnover numbers (TON) through Suzuki coupling reactions. Furthermore, the catalyst could be recovered and reused 7 runs without considerable palladium leaching or alteration in its performance.